Shooting, killing, and name-dropping galore sums up what director & producer Demofilo Fidani's "One Damned Day At Dawn . . . Django Meets Sartana" (1970) does best. Hardcore Italian western fans will relish this non-stop, colorful, no-holds-barred orgy of gunplay and violence jammed into ninety bullet-blasting minutes. What "One Damned Day" does worst is tell an imaginative, coherent story with memorable characters, but Fidaniknown to most as Miles Deemnever lets the plot get in the way of the pistol-packing pyrotechnics. Meanwhile, "One Damned Day" qualifies as the most generic spaghetti western that I have ever seen. Specifically, our two brave heroes: Django and Sartana appear virtually alike in looks and wardrobe with little to distinguish them from each other. Meaning, Fidaniwho made at least five other oaters featuring the same title characters fanning their six-guns--and his uncredited scenarist give us precious little to individualize them. First, any well-versed spaghetti western fan knows that Django in his seminal incarnation as Franco Nero in Sergio Corbucci landmark western violated all the rules of Euro-western heroes. He dragged a coffin concealing a machine gun. However, Jack Bettsa.k.a. Hunt Powersresembles the typical Hollywood western hero on horseback with his fast Colt's .45 revolver that he can shoot with unerring accuracy. Second, handsome Fabio Testi is practically unrecognizable as Sartana and projects neither the charisma that South American actor George Hilton earlier brought to the role nor the grit that Gianni Garko invested in his turns as Sartana. Neither of our heroes have any tricks up their sleeves nor do they spout any clever dialogue. They just shoot, kill, and ride like blazes. In an early scene, a group of grateful Mexican peasants pay tribute to Sartana as a sympathetic hero because he convinced them to re-open an abandoned mine thatas it turns outstill yields a fortune in money for them to meet their immediate needs. In other words, were they not named either Django or Sartana, we wouldn't know them apart or individually from the hundreds of other swift-shooting six-gunners that populated the spaghetti western. The villainoutlaw killer Burt Willeris played by Gordon Mitchell look-a-look Dino Strano, and director Demofilo Fidani gives him more characterization than anybody else in this dandy dustraiser. He constantly argues with himself in a mirror while he plays poker with his reflection, only to warn his own image that he had better not cheat at cards! Okay, it may be going artistically out on a limb to suggest that Sartana and Django represent mirror images of themselves competing with a villain who has his own split-personality. As for the American and Mexican outlaws that constitute Willer's gang, they all look the same in their Stetsons/sombreros, right-handed six-shooters, unkempt beards and uncut hair. Moreover, they are all slim, trim, and athletic as all get out. You won't find any pot-bellied Bud Spencer or Mario Brega types in this cast. The best that you can say about all these corpses in search of our heroes' bullets is that stunt coordinator Benito Pacificoif he didn't perform all the gagshas trained them well as they pitch, whirl, tumble, and smash into furniture, walls, or desert scenery when they take their slugs and die. Interestingly, most of them fall forward rather than backwards, but they look terrific doing it. Late in the last act, Fidani pulls out even more stops by having them photographed in slow motion like something out of a Sam Peckinpah bloodbath.
The craggy mountain and desert style scenery are as stunning in its raw beauty as the babes who impersonate the dance-hall mistresses in this standard-issue European oater that benefits from a superior as well as atmospheric music score by composer Coriolano Gori. Gori puts a lot of snazzy jazz in his score with just enough Ennio Morricone bits and pieces to pay homage to the master. Gori's score deserves to be preserved on a soundtrack or at least the title tune should make a compilation disc. Again, the absence of a scenarist is interesting because "One Damned Day" delivers the bulk of its plot in the opening scenes. Burt Willer and his gang of cutthroat gunslingers have stolen an overdue U.S. cavalry payroll, and Willer wants to ensure that his gunmen and he make it safely across the border by kidnapping a beautiful but feisty American girl from a nearby ranch. The father as well as the authorities want to stop Willer and company before theythe villainshightail it across the border, so they raise the rewards on them and Sartana and Django show up to cut several more notches on their pistol grips of their six-guns. Indeed, this western winds up on a predictable note, but not before three-fourths of the cast bites the dust. If you're a Euro-western fan and you want to kill 90 minutes with gusto, "One Damned Day At Dawn" is ideal entertainment.
The craggy mountain and desert style scenery are as stunning in its raw beauty as the babes who impersonate the dance-hall mistresses in this standard-issue European oater that benefits from a superior as well as atmospheric music score by composer Coriolano Gori. Gori puts a lot of snazzy jazz in his score with just enough Ennio Morricone bits and pieces to pay homage to the master. Gori's score deserves to be preserved on a soundtrack or at least the title tune should make a compilation disc. Again, the absence of a scenarist is interesting because "One Damned Day" delivers the bulk of its plot in the opening scenes. Burt Willer and his gang of cutthroat gunslingers have stolen an overdue U.S. cavalry payroll, and Willer wants to ensure that his gunmen and he make it safely across the border by kidnapping a beautiful but feisty American girl from a nearby ranch. The father as well as the authorities want to stop Willer and company before theythe villainshightail it across the border, so they raise the rewards on them and Sartana and Django show up to cut several more notches on their pistol grips of their six-guns. Indeed, this western winds up on a predictable note, but not before three-fourths of the cast bites the dust. If you're a Euro-western fan and you want to kill 90 minutes with gusto, "One Damned Day At Dawn" is ideal entertainment.